National Lawyers Guild - Hurricane Sandyhttp://www.nlg.org/taxonomy/term/193
en2012 Annual Reporthttp://www.nlg.org/2012-annual-report
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/263" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Annual Report</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/33" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Occupy</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/193" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Hurricane Sandy</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/264" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mountaintop removal</a> </div>
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Wed, 13 Feb 2013 22:35:05 +0000Tasha854 at http://www.nlg.orghttp://www.nlg.org/2012-annual-report#comments Occupy and the police needn't be enemies http://www.nlg.org/news/occupy-and-police-neednt-be-enemies
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Sarah Jaffe </div>
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The Guardian </div>
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<span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2012-12-10T00:00:00-05:00">Mon, 12/10/2012</span> </div>
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<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/10/occupy-police-enemies-sandy">View the original piece</a> </div>
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<p><em>As Sandy showed Many activists now appearing in court had organised relief during the storm. Hopefully NYPD officers will remember that.</em></p>
<p>Ninety-nine people arrested during Occupy Wall Street's 17 September anniversary actions had their court dates last week. They trooped into the courthouse accompanied by green-hatted legal observers and National Lawyers Guild representatives, and faced the judge. Their charges mostly boiled down to "being part of a public protest".</p>
<p>Molly Crabapple – artist, journalist, and illustrator – was one of those arrested that day. "I was plucked off the sidewalk during a protest on the anniversary of Occupy, and didn't know what I was accused of until after 11 hours in jail," she explains. "I was let off with an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal (ACD), which means that if I'm not arrested for six months, my charges will be dismissed." ACDs were given to 52 others, according to Ben Meyers of the National Lawyers Guild. Four had their prosecutions declined and one was dismissed outright; for 25 of them, prosecution wasn't ready and five weren't present. Eleven pleaded not guilty and will go to trial.</p>
<p>Many of those same people arrested for marches and direct actions on that day have also been involved in running Occupy's Superstorm Sandy relief efforts – work that has earned them praise from mayoral hopeful and <a href="https://twitter.com/BilldeBlasio/status/271370759438471168" title="">public advocate Bill DeBlasio</a>, and even, grudgingly, billionaire <a href="http://gothamist.com/2012/12/01/video_bloomberg_praises_occupy_sand.php" title="">mayor Mike Bloomberg</a>. The NYPD has yet to come out and officially thank Occupy Sandy for saving lives after the storm. But the news this week, as Occupiers had their day in court, was that in Red Hook at least, the police appreciated the efforts of Occupy Sandy volunteers in helping keep the neighbourhood safe while the power was out.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/rage_with_hook_machine_nypd_crime_CF276NUbDkzRFRgdw3sXkI" title="">New York Post</a>, of all tabloids, reported that a "police source" said: "This crisis allowed us all to remove the politics and differences we had to do our job, and come to the aid of the people. We all rose to the occasion." Kirby Desmaris, an Occupy Sandy organiser, told the Post she'd had the experience of working alongside NYPD, the National Guard and the mayor's office.</p>
<p>In some ways, it's come full circle: during the early days of Occupy, the protesters would chant "Cops are the 99%!" and exhort officers to join them. "We're fighting for your pensions, too!" they'd say. "Goldman Sachs isn't on your side!" It was weeks of sustained police repression, kettling and pepper spray and mass arrests, that hardened lots of Occupiers into their "fuck the police" stand (and made them ally with the burgeoning "stop stop-and-frisk" movement springing from New York's communities of colour, who have long known that the police are not on their side).</p>
<p>Occupy Wall Street was, of course, a response to financial disaster, to the inequality that crept up on many of us slowly over the course of the past 30 years and then blew wide open with the financial crash of 2008. Zuccotti Park was always a place where those in need could get a hot meal and a place to sleep, where comfort and security working groups did their best to make sure everyone was safe and warm. The encampments were performative, sure, but they were <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/152694/occupy_wall_st._prepares_for_crackdown_--_will_bloomberg_try_to_tear_it_all_down/" title="">also practical</a> – they created a grey-water system for cleaning dishwater and keeping the kitchen sanitary, a medical tent with trained nurses and MDs providing care for residents.</p>
<p>All that was destroyed by the NYPD on 17 November 2011, along with <a href="http://truth-out.org/news/item/9369-occupy-wall-street-librarians-strike-back" title="">5,500 books</a> in the library, tents, laptops, and people's homes. It should not be forgotten that Occupy Wall Street and other protest camps around the country did not fade away, but were repressed. "Arrests for protesters are aversion therapy, designed to keep you, and your friends, from wanting to protest again," says Crabapple.</p>
<p>Those same skills that the NYPD did its best to stamp out not only helped "prevent crime" in those same overpoliced neighbourhoods. They saved lives. Volunteers continue to work as the Red Cross delivers trash bags of hamburgers and pats itself on the back, and Bloomberg appoints a Goldman Sachs executive to oversee recovery.</p>
<p>It'd be too much to ask that the NYPD learn from its experiences in Red Hook – that gratuitous arrests and stopping-and-frisking don't keep people safe as well as caring for their basic needs. But perhaps when the inevitable protests start again, some of those officers will remember who was there on the ground.</p>
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Mon, 10 Dec 2012 18:33:26 +0000Tasha794 at http://www.nlg.orghttp://www.nlg.org/news/occupy-and-police-neednt-be-enemies#commentsBattered Rockaways Need Good Lawyershttp://www.nlg.org/news/battered-rockaways-need-good-lawyers
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Adam Klasfeld </div>
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Courthouse News </div>
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<span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2012-11-16T00:00:00-05:00">Fri, 11/16/2012</span> </div>
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<a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/11/16/52332.htm">View the original piece</a> </div>
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<p>FAR ROCKAWAY, N.Y. (CN) - Along with generators, warm clothing, candles and batteries and food and water, Hurricane Sandy survivors need pro bono legal help, according to lawyers volunteering in the Rockaways.<br /><br />
A line for a makeshift legal clinic set up at a table outside St. Gertrude Parish in Far Rockaway stretched to the end of the block on Beach 38th Street.<br /><br />
Several lawyers volunteered through 596 Acres, a nonprofit that helps communities organize, coordinating with the National Lawyer's Guild and Occupy Sandy, a project of Occupy Wall Street.<br /><br />
St. Gertrude's church has been a main hub providing food, clothing and medical care in the early days of Occupy Sandy's efforts. Its legal outpost opened on Veteran's Day.<br /><br />
Volunteers passed out a 10-page newsletter with information about applying for federal aid, getting cleanup jobs through New York State, finding emergency shelter and offering tips for staying warm and finding emergency shelter.<br /><br />
Caroline, a recent New York University Law School graduate, said the legal clinic's most pressing goal is helping people meet deadlines to apply for emergency assistance.<br /><br />
Federal Emergency Management Agency applications are due within 60 days, and disaster unemployment must be filed within 30 days.<br /><br />
Frank Jenkins, who "just got out of the military," spent Veteran's Day helping Rockaways residents fill out FEMA's online forms on his Android tablet computer.<br /><br />
He spent the previous day donating his legal services to Staten Island's New Dorp neighborhood, on the island's south shore.<br /><br />
"In Staten Island, the primary issues concern homeowner issues, primarily dealing with insurance and issues such as whether to walk away from a home, who is responsible for doing demolition on a home and issues of that nature," Jenkins said.<br /><br />
He said that differing demographics of neighborhoods require different legal responses.<br /><br />
"I think this is a low-income area, whereas the New Dorp area in Staten Island is fairly affluent," he said.<br /><br />
Multiple lawyers working pro-bono on Veteran's Day compared their work to "triage."<br /><br />
"I talked to you for 3 minutes, and the back of the line is now 10 yards farther back," Jenkins told a reporter.<br /><br />
Anthony Mohen, a 28-year-old lawyer, said Rockaway residents called the government response inadequate.<br /><br />
"There's a lot of frustration around FEMA's response," Mohen said. "Once you submit an application, there's the process of waiting for them to send an inspector and make a determination about whether they're going to provide any sort of benefits."<br /><br />
Brian Dworkin, a director at Queens Legal Services, also was disappointed with delays in government help.<br /><br />
He oversees a city-sponsored legal clinic at Church of the Nazarene, where FEMA, the Red Cross, and other institutions have been offering food, clothing, blankets and other aid since Nov. 9.<br /><br />
"There was nothing organized here until three days ago," Dworkin said. "I'm sure there is directly a link between that and the fact that this is a community of poor people. Why should these folks suffer any more than anybody else in this city? We understand that part of this is a result of physical distance, but that's no excuse."<br /><br />
The weekend the legal clinic opened, it served roughly 150 people to address the community's "tremendous need," he said.<br /><br />
He said that getting food stamps and medication could also require legal help.<br /><br />
Outside the clinic, Leroy, a 64-year-old resident on disability, said his 100-year-old mother died during the storm, and he could not make it to North Carolina to attend her funeral.<br /><br />
He got as far as Long Island City, and stayed with his sisters.<br /><br />
Back in the Rockaways, his apartment lost its lights, heat and hot water.<br /><br />
"Cold weather did a mess with my arthritis," he said.<br /><br />
Dworkin said that he expected the clinic to follow up with residents for "several more weeks, if not longer."</p>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/193" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Hurricane Sandy</a> </div>
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<a href="/taxonomy/term/194" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Rockaways</a> </div>
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Fri, 16 Nov 2012 18:09:32 +0000Tasha789 at http://www.nlg.orghttp://www.nlg.org/news/battered-rockaways-need-good-lawyers#comments